Continuing with the trend from Christmas there seems to be an uptick in hate crimes targeting Muslims, this time in Southern California.
Costa Mesa - Police are investigating a series of apparent hate crimes targeting Muslims in Southern California.
Mosques and displays have been vandalized in Costa Mesa, Mission Viejo, and Azusa in recent weeks… in five separate incidents.
On New Year’s Day, someone left a burned and tattered Quran… the Islamic faith’s holy text… at the back entrance of the Islamic Education Center while hundreds of people worshipped inside.
This story in the LA Times covers what is going on
O.C. Islamic Educational Center a Target of anti-Muslim acts
Costa Mesa police have stepped up patrols near the Islamic Educational Center of Orange County, the target of recent anti-Islamic acts including vandalism, hate mail and the burning of two copies of the Koran.
Vandals also recently defaced part of an outdoor interfaith holiday display in Mission Viejo, according to the Los Angeles office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which denounced both acts as “incidents of anti-Islam hate targeting the local Muslim community.”
The two incidents are thought to be unrelated but appear to be part of a recent uptick in anti-Muslim acts nationally, especially since the attempted terrorist bombing of a jetliner headed to Detroit on Christmas, council spokeswoman Munira Syeda said Saturday.
A burned and torn copy of the Koran was found in the parking lot at the educational center, on Airport Loop Drive, during Friday prayers. It was the second time in a month that a desecrated Koran had been found there, according to a statement on the Costa Mesa mosque’s website.
“This deplorable incident is a form of anti-Islamic assault, hate crime and terror campaign against American Muslims,” it read. “Even more, it is a great offense against 1.2 billion Muslim followers worldwide because it defiles their holiest and most sacred divine book.”
Costa Mesa Police Sgt. Ed Everett said that his department has increased patrols in the area but that no arrests have been made.
In the Mission Viejo incident, vandals defaced the Islamic portion of the holiday display but left nearby Christian components untouched. They painted over a verse from the Koran and left behind a piece of paper reading “No Islamic Lighthouses in the U.S.A.”
Syeda said the vandalism of the display, at La Paz Road and Chrisanta Drive, was reported to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, which provides police services to Mission Viejo. Investigators could not be reached Saturday.
Syeda and other Muslims said they hope the incidents prompt public disavowals of such behavior.
“Americans of all faiths, and leaders of all political persuasions, must repudiate those who would divide our nation along religious or racial lines,” Hussam Ayloush, the L.A. council’s executive director, said in a statement.
January 5th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
I’m not a fan of Islamic lighthouses either, but if it prevents Islamic shipwrecks we’ve just got to accept them.
January 5th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
This was to be expected in the wake of the attempted underwear bombing that failed. Of course there will be those who will try to use this incident to whip up hatred against Islam, for their own agenda, no less insidious than that of al qaeda. How can neo cons, who subverted the US into war, complain about al qaeda when they are responsible for countless innocent deaths in Iraq, and of american service personel that number in thousands?
God give strength to American Muslims through this difficult time. My condolences to the victims of hate crimes.
January 5th, 2010 at 5:51 pm
Lighthouses? what is that supposed to mean?!
January 5th, 2010 at 11:17 pm
*Sigh* I’m afraid my mosque might be next. We have in the past been a victim of hate crimes. In the end the police won’t do anything.
January 6th, 2010 at 6:31 am
Leonora It may be humour? not sure. Could Alex be swiss ?
January 6th, 2010 at 9:02 am
Only an ignorant individual would equate Al Qaeda and neo cons as they so put it. Our government went to war based on intelligence (some eight & some wrong). AQ kills innocent civilians as their target and when deaths are equated to US and allied forces, the targets aren’t the civilians. How many civilians within these Muslims countries are being killed for senseless reasons like Christianity, wanting better fir your family or loving the wrong person. These extremists are the ones all people should be up in arms over. Not someone who simply defiled a man
made book that Muslims themselves desecrate with the dishonor they show it through their actions of murder drug trafficking and intimidation.
January 6th, 2010 at 5:14 pm
Murder? Drug Trafficking? Intimidation? Have you ever heard of the mafia? How about America? Mexico? Names don’t sound familiar to you? Give me a good reason telling me that the taliban and al qaeda are Muslim terrorists. Blowing a mosque by the taliban is islamic terrorism? Forcing kids into jihad ie. madrasas in Afghanistan is jihad? Suicide bombing which kills innocent Muslim civilians just for their own benefit is jihad? Did you know that jihad is protection for the Muslim’s against a tyrant? Isn’t what the taliban and al qaeda doing against Muslim civilians tyranny? So why are you equating aq and taliban with Islam?
January 6th, 2010 at 9:18 pm
Yup, totally agree with ‘Huh?’ here…Leonard is not being fair minded…
“Our government went to war based on intelligence (some right & some wrong).”
I’m afraid you can’t treat the Iraq war as a simple policy mistake based on wrong intelligence Leonard. The Bush administration declared war on Iraq on a pack of lies, flattened almost the entire country, destroyed Iraq’s infrastructure, wiped out over a million innocent people, traumatized millions of others and created a royal mess in the Middle East. Over a million people died for a lie Leonard and that’s a very, very large number. You can’t absolve these neocons of blame, they are war criminals and they’ve got to be held accountable. They are as bad as Al-Qaeda, cold blooded, indifferent killers, that’s what they are.
January 7th, 2010 at 3:38 am
Leonard
“Only an ignorant individual would equate Al Qaeda and neo cons as they so put it. ”
Only an ignorant person would not do so. Only an ignorant person would not be aware that the Office of Special Projects, had a special channel via Mossad that fabricated the Iraq war evidence, knowing full well genocide of Iraqi’s was on the agenda.
” Our government went to war based on intelligence (some eight & some wrong). ”
Poor Leonard, so ignorant? THE IRAQ WAR EVIDENCE WAS DELIBERATEY CREATED BY NEO CONS, and backed by Christan Zionists who thought invading Iraq would bring the Armaggedon.
“AQ kills innocent civilians as their target and when deaths are equated to US and allied forces, the targets aren’t the civilians.”
Heard of Blackwater? and by the way the same groups of people are now trying to bamboozle America into an Iran war, once again backed by “Christian Zionists” who see a war with Iran/israel as fulfillment of Ezekial’s prophecy before they are whisked up in an armeggdon.
Everybody knows about OSP and how it fed the US intelligence agencies fabricated in Israel “evidence of Iraqi war WOMD”
————-
The spies who pushed for war
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,4714031-103681,00.html
The OSP was an open and largely unfiltered conduit to the White House not
only for the Iraqi opposition. It also forged close ties to a parallel, ad
hoc intelligence operation inside Ariel Sharon’s office in Israel
specifically to bypass Mossad and provide the Bush administration with more alarmist reports on Saddam’s Iraq than Mossad was prepared to authorise.
“None of the Israelis who came were cleared into the Pentagon through normal channels,” said one source familiar with the visits. Instead, they were waved in on Mr Feith’s authority without having to fill in the usual forms.
The exchange of information continued a long-standing relationship Mr Feith and other Washington neo-conservatives had with Israel’s Likud party.
—————–
Larry Franklin was arrested for spying for Israel in the aftermath. Even though there was a purge, these Likud extremists still infest the US intelligence services by pretending to help them fight the war on terror.
The neo cons are now trying to get the US to attack Iran using the climate of fear as the cover, like they did with Iraq.
Leonard, only a few weeks ago another such deception was uncovered. This time regarding Iran.
————–
Iran Nuclear Trigger Document a Forgery, Mossad Suspected
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2009/12/30/iran-nuclear-trigger-document-a-forgery-mossad-suspected-as-culprit/
———–
How then can you say Al Qaeda and the Neo Cons cannot be equated?